Accidentally on Purpose Blog

I feel somewhat compelled to address the iPhone; everyone else has by now.  But since I don’t plan to own one, at least not in the immediate future, I’ll limit my contribution to the frenzy with an observation of the launch.

By strategically limiting early access – to the device and the story — Apple is really expanding its ability to provide wider access.  Some people may not agree with the approach, but for Apple it seems to work.  Ah, the brilliance of a Steve Jobs-driven “PR” campaign.

For example,

• Making the devices available on a Friday evening to create a shopping frenzy before the weekend.
• Putting the devices in the hands of a select group of influencers.  Those influencers ignited the blogosphere and traditional media outlets this past week.
• Today’s “town hall meeting” at Apple. The ultimate insider’s event — who wouldn’t want to be there?
• And despite the high price, limiting sales to only two per customer. 

Pattern #2: Peer Adjudication

With the creation of knowledge – especially in cases where there’s a great deal of knowledge – comes the responsibility to decide what is useful and what is not. In the old model – e.g., the corporate information portal – the decision-making process was the responsibility of the few who either had the formal authority or the technical skill to make and execute on recommendations. A few case studies illustrate how the social-media approach – involving many more people – might be a more effective.

Giovanni tipped me to one of the less well known but, certainly one of the more interesting example’s of Peer Adjudication; a CIA project called “Intellipedia“.  Its covered at length in this New York Times Magazine story entitled, Open Source Spying, by Clive Thompson.

Its a long read but well worth it.  This case shines light on the broader potential of social media to use the wisdom of crowds to refine and adjudicate the value of data. It’s something that’s often noted in case studies filed by the leading enterprise wiki companies (ATLASSIAN & Socialtext) – it’s a key benefit and the implementation of wikis and blogs in the enterprise is helping businesses to better understand the concept. Social-media environments can be used to enlist many qualified people to assess and even correct important information.

In a previous post I addressed the three conditions for Social Media. 

• Ensuring that people with social skills are chosen – or allowed to emerge – to lead projects
• Appealing to both the group and individual needs of the participants and
• Building communities around particular topics/services as a way to scale a population of users 

These conditions focus on how social rules are in fact more pronounced – and beneficial to businesses – in a social-media environment.  Now that the conditions are understood what are the patterns for how Social Media is currently being utilized.

Pattern #1: Peer production

Peer production is perhaps the best understood business benefit of Social Media. Simply expressed, the idea is that when more people – more staff, more customers, more partners – participate in the creation of knowledge, the quantity and quality of knowledge too increases.

If you look at the publicly available case studies on what businesses are using social media for you will find ample evidence that businesses are using social-media tools to build subject-specific knowledge inside their business. The catalog of case studies in this area is growing fast. There are many blog and wiki case studies reporting improved efficiencies in product development, product marketing, sales and knowledge management.

I was in the “Valley” on Monday and Tuesday this week.   What a couple of days!  First on Monday, Chris Heuer’s  Social Media Club workshop entitled: Starting the Conversation was held at the SAP office’s in Palo Alto.   That was a really good event. It was my first Social Media Club event; although, I’ve met Chris before at the Community 2.0 event in Las Vegas but it was really a pleasure to see him in his element.  

In addition to Chris; Shel Israel, Giovanni Rodriguez, Jeremiah Owyang, Debbie Schultz and Brian Solis were all great presenters.   Brian covered the event so well in this post that I won’t even try. 

I also got the opportunity to meet, albeit briefly, with Jen McClure from SNCR and we agreed to try and find the right way for SAP to participate in the society.  More on that as it happens. 

Tuesday morning I had breakfast with Shel and Giovanni at the Original Pancake House in Los Altos.  What a great place!  Giovanni, Shel and I spent the morning discussing the SMC club event from the day before and where “conversations” are headed we also discussed and debated our favorite topic — PR.  There is so much to write about regarding that conversation that I need to think about it for a while.  

Then it was off to Podtech for lunch to discuss a project that I want to work on. Giovanni thought that Jeremiah would be just the one to talk to.  Boy was he right,  I outlined for Jeremiah what I was thinking and he visualized it almost immediately.  I won’t go into detail about what it is here – but once I get it closer to reality I promise that you’ll read about it here first!

Anyway it was a great two days in the valley!

Here’s a great post from Marc Andreesen (Co-founder and CTO, Ning Inc. ) who writes about how to hire the best people.  I think Mark’s post is spot on.  Hiring good people is no accident, sure it can happen that way (hell, that’s part of the premise behind the name of this blog) but if you really want to surround yourself with the “best” people you will have to work at it. 

When it comes to hiring “PR” people. Like Marc, I too look for Drive, Curiosity and Ethics but that’s just the ante.  I’m also looking for those that want to change the rules of the game.  I’m looking for conversationalists, those with broad business experience and able to participate in this more confrontational style of conversation.

What does all that mean?  I want to do my part to help the PR profession with it’s “PR” problem!  PR isn’t just traditional media relations.   Its a lot more than that.  True PR or ”Public Relations” is IMO the domain of everyone in your organization.  Now, that doesn’t mean that everyone gets to speak to the WSJ but it does mean that in the real world people speak with one another.   How you engage with other people; customers, partners, vendors, competitors, even your neighbors — matters!  It determines how others feel about you and the organization you represent.  This is PR.  Remember, its always about the people first!

I wanted to take a moment to introduce you (for those who aren’t familiar) to the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) or \snik-ers\ as its more commonly referred to. The SNCR is a global think tank dedicated to the advanced study of new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effects on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society.

Its Fellows include more than 40 futurists, scholars, business leaders, communicators, members of the media and technologists from around the globe, all of whom collaborate to explore issues surrounding the evolution of communications and media.

They are dedicated to creating a bridge between the academic theory and the pragmatic implementation of new media and communications tools & technologies and social media methodologies.

They also have a Vendor Council with representatives from more than a dozen leading technology companies.  At this time SAP is not a member — perhaps I can change that next week when I will have the opportunity to meet Jen McClure, the executive director of the society while I’m in Palo Alto. SAP is hosting the Social Media Club’s Silicon Valley Workshop: Starting the Conversation on June 11th.  The SNCR is a co-sponsor of that event.

To provide you a sense for some of the work SNCR’s has conducted:

• Research Committee: The State of the Art in Social Media
• Research & Best Practices Committee: Corporate Blogging Policies – Best Practices
• Research & Best Practices Committee: The Emergence of Blogging in University Admissions and Recruiting (in conjunction with Georgetown University)
• New Communications Law Committee: Podcasts: Download or Broadcast – Legal Implications

And some of the research that is currently underway:

• Working with Marketwire, one of its Vendor Council members on a  research project exploring how bloggers’ source and use news items.
• Corporate Blogging Best Practices
• The Customer as Co-author & Co-creator of a Brand.

They also publish a blog and monthly enewsletter called the New Communications Review and the bi-annual Journal of New Communications Research. The Spring / Summer 2007 issue will be available in a couple of weeks, and will include a broad range of topics:

• The effects of social media on the profession of public relations.
• The impact of the Internet on social capital in America.
• An examination of the healthcare blogosphere.
• and more…

Oh, and one of the more interesting elements of the journal is that it is accompanied by a wiki that provides for ongoing collaboration and updates between the society and it’s members.

If you are interested in further developing your communications knowledge/experience or your looking embark on the social media path (personally or professionally) you should really have a closer look at the Society for New Communications Research. You too may find that “SNiCkeRs” really does satisfy!

Technorati tags: Society for New Communications Research, Communications, PR, Social Media, Social Media Club